HOMEMADE BISQUICK BAKING MIX

Do you like to keep a box of Bisquick baking mix in the pantry for a quick and easy way to stir up some biscuits or pancakes?

If you do, here’s a way to mix together your own homemade version that will save you money too!

The Bisquick brand of baking mix has been around since the 1930′s and was created to make cooking biscuits easy and convenient by using their mixture that already contained the baking powder and the shortening. You can usually just add some water or milk to the Bisquick and that’s all it takes for some basic biscuits, waffles, or pancakes.

When I set out to make my own Bisquick, I soon discovered that there were quite a a few versions of this mixture, and they were all just a tiny bit different. After comparing lots of recipes, I decided on a mixture that uses flour, baking powder, salt, and shortening. You should use white all purpose flour rather than whole wheat as whole wheat will give different, heavier baking results. A few things I left out were:

Sugar: Some recipes called for a few tablespoons of sugar but many recipes did not. I feel that if you can eliminate some sugar from your diet the better off you are, so I did not include any sugar in my mixture.

– Dry Milk Powder: A few recipes had you adding in some dry milk powder, but again several recipes did not include that ingredient. Because the biscuits or pancakes are often made by adding milk, I decided to opt out on using any dry milk powder.

– Butter: If you want your homemade Bisquick mixture to be shelf stable, you will need to use shortening rather than butter or margarine. If you have objections to shortening you can substitute butter, but you will then need to keep your homemade baking mix in the refrigerator.

– Sifting: I read one recipe that said to sift your mixture – twice! I had good intentions . . . really I did. Got my sifter out and everything. I managed to sift about one and a half cups of flour and that was it. *Boring* If you are blessed with more patience than me, then go for it. Personally I think my mixture turned out OK despite the lack of sifting.

HOMEMADE BISQUICK BAKING MIX

5 Cups All Purpose Flour (I used unbleached)

3 Tablespoons Baking Powder

2 Teaspoons Salt

1 Cup Shortening

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt.

2. Cut in the shortening. You can use a pastry blender, however, I find it easier to just use my hands to get it mixed in really well.

3. Store in an airtight container.

4. Use the same as you would use Bisquick in a recipe.

This is a new mixture for me but I’ve used it in my Copycat Red Lobster Biscuits with good results. I did give in to temptation the other day and bought a new cookbook called Best Bisquick Recipes so that I can have some new recipes to use with my homemade Bisquick. (Some recipes I’ve bookmarked are the Easy Chicken Pot Pie, the Cornbread Sticks, and the Two Cheese Straws).